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Sunday, 21 July 2013

Open Mike: The Reductio of 'Pro'

Reductio ad absurdum: Latin, meaning "reduced to the absurd." From the Greek eis atopon epagoge, "reduction to the impossible." A rhetorical technique used throughout recorded history in mathematical logic, philosophical reasoning, and informal argumentation. The idea is that if something becomes absurd when you take it to the extreme, it makes the same notion suspicious even when it's less extreme.

Okay, I promise not to write a Guide to Buying Pool Tables. I realize my "other" obsessions are invading TOP rather a lot these days, and that not very many people are interested in my thoughts about pool tables. Vintage audio, maybe; jazz, of course (everybody loves the jazz); coffee, most certainly: everyone in the world drinks coffee, except Ctein. And nobody minds when I write about my dear doggie, because not liking dogs is a serious character defect that most people would not admit to even if they secretly felt that way. But pool? An acquired taste. Even I know that.

But I think there's an insight somewhere in the area, and I'd like to chase it down if I may. It's even pertinent to photography, kind of.

I've been dealing with three stupid little letters—"pro"—all of my life as a photographer. The idea the term signifies is that a "professional" uses a certain product and that therefore that product is very serious and impressive indeed, and your chances of being ridiculed for using it are minimized. Everyone seems to want to be like a "pro." Everyone wants to be thought of as serious and impressive. Nobody likes to be open to ridicule, much less be ridiculed. Slap those three little letters on damn near anything and people apparently will flock to buy it, regardless of what it is.

In many areas of life, you kinda can't object. It does seem absurd to me every so often: GM has a line of rebranded Chevy trucks called "GMC," for instance, that use the advertising tagline "We Are Professional Grade." Um...what? Struck me as stupid (and lazy on the part of the marketing department) when I first heard it, and still does, but then, people do use pickup trucks for their businesses, sometimes—for instance if your business is gardening or laying concrete, or carpentry, when you might need to transport building materials. I have a cousin who's married to a concrete guy, and he's a cool guy. So, okay.

In photography, I was alive when the "big shift" occurred in amateurs' aspirations: when I was a boy, the pinnacle of photography was the globetrotting photojournalist; that's what all the amateurs admired the most and wanted to emulate. By the late '80s or early '90s, it was the professional, someone who made a lot of money doing jobs for pay. A long client list became the ultimate bonafide, rather than editorial tearsheets from newspapers and magazines.

I could never really object to the idealization of the "pro" in photography. I'd much rather be an amateur, which seems hugely more appealing to me. But if you want to buy a pro safelight, or a pro point-and-shoot, or a pro camera bag, or a pro lens, or a pro widget or a pro gizmo, fine, be my guest.

But in pool? Really?

Seems to me this is where the universal allure of the term "pro" descends to absurdity. Who wants to be a pro pool player? Think about this for a minute:

To be a professional pool player, you pretty much have to spend your days playing and practicing pool. The really good guys practice up to 12 hours a day. That means you're effectively closing off your life to pretty much everything else. Is that really desirable for most people?

You can't make a living playing pool. Well, a few people can, but it's really hard. There are something like 42 "Pro" tours, and none of them have any money. Even some fairly large tournaments have first prize purses of three or five thousand dollars. And even some very good players work hard at it and barely scratch out an existence. Not one in a hundred Americans can name the biggest, most presitigious tournaments. Not one in fifty Americans can name the best pool players in the world. Ask around.

Then there's that seamy underside. Everyone who's ever seen either of the two major pool movies, "The Hustler" and "The Color of Money," both with Paul Newman (and both of which had a major influence on the popularity of the game) knows about "hustlers," people who travel around trying to make a living by betting with other pool players in local pool rooms. Becoming a "pro" in this sense is roughly as prestigious as aspiring to become a small-time hood.

Try this on for size: "Dad, Mom, I've decided to quit college in order to follow my dream. I really want to be a professional pool player." Would you glow with pride? Even Willie Mosconi's parents were dismayed and appalled when they realized their son was going to pursue pool as a career.

In short, there's very little glory and very little money in being a "pro" pool player.

But does that stop amateurs from wanting to emulate the "pros" in pool as in every other sport?

Nope.

Many home pool tables have nasty, narrow little pockets that are hard to hit—they're "tight," in the parlance of the game. Why? Because pros prefer tight pockets. There are many reasons why: practicing on a table with tight pockets will improve your aiming skills, and playing on a table with tight pockets tends to separate really good players from not-quite-as-good players. Both are things that pros like. Therefore, amateurs want tight pockets too, just like a duffer will tee off from the he-man tees even when he can't drive the golf ball two hundred yards from anywhere on his best day.

But for amateurs—occasional players who don't practice as much as an hour a day—they're not only unnecessary, they're actively undesirable. Why? Because pocketing the balls is only half of the game. The other half is "playing for position," i.e., controlling where the cue ball ends up for the next shot. Tight pockets merely make it harder for occasional players to pocket the balls (or "pot" them, as they say in Great Britain), thus reinforcing the notion that the entirety of the game is pocketing balls. And de-emphasizing position play even more than it's already de-emphasized. If you miss your shot, it doesn't matter where the cue ball ends up.

I say, make the pockets on home tables looser and people will have more fun playing and learning the game.

But no, we can't do that, because it's not what the pros would do. And we all have to be like pros, even if we only play stripes-and-solids once a week on Saturdays while drinking beer.

Same thing with fast cloth. Everybody is all impressed with fast cloth because that's what the pros like. Never mind that it makes the game harder to enjoy for 99.5% of the people who play it—like summer weekend golfers playing on glass-hard, ultrafast U.S. Open greens.

The abbreviated versionOkay, so I lied: here's my micro buying guide—three things to look for in a pool table, sez me:

Relatively loose pockets, so you can make more shots and concentrate a little on the position game.

Closed rails. Here's one area where we should emulate the pros, who all play on closed-rail pool tables such as Diamonds or Gold Crowns...and yet we don't. A closed rail is a rail that encloses the pockets. The majority of home tables are open-pocket designs because they're more decorative and more traditional, but closed rails make it easier to bridge over the pockets. On an open-pocket design you have to make your bridge on the pocket itself. Closed-pocket tables aren't as pretty, but they're more playable.

Regular cloth. Don't let the dealer upsell you to a superfast cloth like Simonis 860 because it's supposedly "the best." It's not; it's just fast, meaning the ball never stops rolling. Again, it's what the pros want—but who cares? It's not what the rest of us will be happiest with. We want to be able to have some idea of when the cue ball will come to rest without needing the feel of a Bustmante.

Closed-pocket pool table. Note that the rail wraps around the pockets and provides a rest for your bridge hand consistent with the rest of the rail.

I know nothing I say will ever keep the primates from wanting to ape "the pros." But if I never heard that word again in the context of product marketing, it would be fine with me.

Mike

"Open Mike," the editorial page of TOP, is a series of off-topic essays that appears only, but not always, on Sundays. This one could have been a lot longer, so count yer blessings!

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Bryan Willman: "It's worth noting that in 'pro' woodworking shops, machine shops, welding shops, etc., the equipment is often simpler, more brutish, and much older than 'amateur' stuff. This is often economics (the stuff has to pay for itself; there's not a day job somewhere else paying for it). Sometimes it's operational (fewer features means fewer things to break.)"

Speed: "Part of the allure of Porsche automobiles is their racing heritage. Porsche makes really fast professional race cars that accelerate, turn and stop frighteningly well. But a Porsche race car would be a horrible thing to drive to work every day. Which is why the Boxster has relatively loose pockets, closed rails, a heater, air conditioning and a killer radio."

Mark Sampson: "The great Irving Crane made his living by selling Cadillacs in my home town, Rochester N.Y., while also being one of the best pool players of his time."

Mike replies: Interested parties can actually see the famous 1966 U.S. Open online at YouTube. It's a thrilling match, very unusual and entertaining—after a short safety battle at the beginning, Crane runs 150 and out for the Championship.

(They are playing 14-1 straight pool. The game is that you can shoot at any ball but you have to call the pocket, receiving one point for every ball pocketed. Then you leave the last ball on the table and the other 14 balls are racked; you then pocket the last ball from the previous rack while simultaneously breaking the new rack. First player to achieve a predetermined number of points—in this case 150—wins. In this match the referee is calling most of players' shots for them so the crowd can hear.)

I had never actually seen this match before, although I have read about it. The video quality is poor but it's still great to watch.

Manuel: "Much rather be an amateur?
And rightly so. 'Amateur' derives from the Latin 'amatore,' which means
'lover,' or 'the one who loves.' Can't think of a better word to define
the enthusiasm for photography."

Jona: "Pros can ruin a lot of hobbies. You should ask Grant Petersen about how
much impact it has had on bicycles. Most bicycle companies assume
everyone wants to race or train rather than just have fun and the vast
majority of new bicycles you see in shops reflect the racing angle. If
you are just looking for a bike for exercise and fun, you may have a
really hard time finding something practical in your local bike shop."

Vern Ogren: "One should never assume that everyone shares your view. I am one of
those 'seriously flawed' personalities who does not have a positive
view of dogs. As a child I was chased and bitten by dogs. The
neighborhood I live in is well served by barking and loose dogs. There
is seemingly no escape from these incivilities. Add a little goo on
the shoe from someone's dear doggie and it's clear winner for 'I
love dogs'?
I have very much enjoyed everything about your blog except the dog
stuff.
An annoying skip-over for me."

Mike replies: Vern, I was of course speaking tongue in cheek. I'm aware that most
people don't share all my views and even that a great many people find
something or other on the blog that is annoying to them. Ctein hates it
when I write about sports! And he and I are even now, because I don't
like IR photography. It's always something.

Dogman (partial comment): "Even when I was a 'professional grade' photographer, I wanted to be an
amateur. Being professional meant having to work at it, being an
amateur meant enjoying it."

Karl: "You don't have to be a great player or an aspiring pro to appreciate a
good fast cloth. If you play on different equipment and in pool halls,
and if you don't have a good cloth on your home table it becomes
noticeable and eventually a bit of a problem. Speed control is a big
part of the game, so you might as well have your equipment be
consistent.

"The other thing about having a table at home and practicing
is that in pretty short order you'll clobber your friends and relatives,
and it's no fun to hide your skills to save their feelings. So if you
love the game and play regularly, you'll end up looking for some
competition, which tends to be at pool halls with tables that have
faster cloth and tighter pockets...."

Comments

Agree wholeheartedly with "pro"; it's the same in tools. In most cases, the truly top-shelf tools are for amateurs. A true professional "X" will know what they are looking for, regardless of label. The "pro" label is for up-selling wanna-be's that don't know the product enough to chose based on actual needs, so they buy "the best" (highest margin per marketing). I don't buy "pro" label items, it makes me feel dirty (sorry Fuji, the x pro is great) Though I shoot Pentax, which seems to cater to the knowledgeable amateur's needs, and often eschews providing workhorse tools for professional photographers, which I have no real interest in as an amateur.

It's funny - I'd never thought much about pocket size. Here in the UK, typical pool tables that you might find in a pub are much smaller in general than a US table, and the pockets are much tighter. I guess because the balls are smaller too. I used to play a bit of snooker when I was at university, and we would play pool when we were just relaxing. We used to play American pool when we were hungover and couldn't hit a barndoor with a shotgun ;)

I don't like dogs. They drool, they smell bad, they piss all over themselves when they get excited, and I've known quite a number of them to eat cat poop. Yuck! disease-carrying pests like houseflies and cockroaches also eat poop!

Cats are so much more intelligent. My grandpa's cat used to terrorize his big dog by standing on top of his cage and reaching in to claw at him. She was nice to him when he wasn't locked up, because then he could fight back. She was evil, yes, but smart.

As I said a pro is a person not an inanimate object or else I'll buy a pro camera and send it out to do papparazzo shots of Kanye West (who has a verry healthy dislike of impertinent papparazzo's I tend to share). Now back to pro cycling in the clothing moments of the Tour de France. Same applies there, have ridden a Willier Carbon bike and found it to be a tad nervous for my tast so I opted out and went for my old and trusted Passo di Gavia instead. Build in the early 90th out of Columbus steal, bought dirt cheap but it rides like silk spun in heaven.

•To be a professional piano player, you pretty much have to spend your days playing and practicing piano.
•You can't make a living playing piano. Well, a few people can, but it's really hard.
•Then there's that seamy underside. Dueling Pianos.
•Try this on for size: "Dad, Mom, I've decided to quit college in order to follow my dream. I really want to be a professional piano player."

But you can probably get started with a nice Yamaha Digital Piano and Yamaha Pro Series Headphones. The Steinway will come later.

Most truly "professional tools" achieve that status because someone buys them and pays am employee to use them because the tools are so dangerous, difficult, unpleasant or maybe simply boring to use.

It seems to me that a "professional grade" truck implies at least a driver with a class C commercial drivers license and maybe 3 axles, air brakes, and 18 speed split transmissions.
(although in California if you put farm plates on it, a 14 year old kid could drive such a truck with 3000 gallons of fuel, or carrying a Caterpillar tractor on the highway with no licence or registration)

For instance the term "professional car" applies to ambulances, hearses, limousines, and flower cars.

@speed
In an inheritance I had my choice of a Porsche Boxster or an auto-x and rally prepared 914/6. The Boxster does a wonderful job of keeping idiot drivers alive and allowing mediocre drivers to drive pretty fast without incident. The 914/6 was pretty much the opposite, had no heat or radio, was deafeningly loud at highway speeds even with the engine off (I was curious) , and had a nearly endless list of ways to catastrophically end a quick drive in the country.
I of course chose the 914/6.

Huh; never would have occurred to me that these variations in pool table pocket size or rail configuration even existed. And now that I know, it's just wrong. These things should be standardized, so you don't get in bad habits.

I've tried playing billiards/snooker a few times in my life. I get a few beginner's luck shots in the first half hour and that always sucks me in. I then continue to spend another frustrating hour or two missing even easy shots and end up hating the game, until next time.

I always heard that Professional Comedians are actually pretty depressed people in their normal lives. And I've never heard of governments of countries being described as "Professional". So what does it all mean? Beats me.

It's always amused me that "professional" or "pro" gets added to only some job titles.
It's like a justification. Used as a defensive mechanism rather than with the comfort that comes with truly being professional.
"I'm a professional actuary," sounds fairly amateurish doesn't it!?
"I'm a professional comedian," just sounds funny.
"I'm a professional doctor," sounds terrible.
Meanwhile I know enough people who like to pull the wool over people's eyes but I think con artist doesn't need anything added.

My incredibly faulty memory tells me that in my pursuit of my degree in Mathematics Reductio ad Absurdum was a proof technique used that allowed you to prove the truth of a supposition by proving that the negative of the supposition yielded a contradiction.

I am sure that all of you have been waiting most of your lives for this pithy explanation.

Nah... actually damned few home tables have tight pockets... but those few tend to be owned by the sort of skilled amateur wannabes who will take to the internet and yammer incessantly about them. Nonetheless, your point about the utility of more forgiving pockets is spot-on.

I can't say the same for your assessment of cloth, however. Simonis 860 plays like a dream once you become accustomed to it. I wouldn't have anything but a fine worsted cloth on my home table. It allows the player to draw or follow the length of the table even if he doesn't have a monster stroke. It also allows for a full range of position options while hitting at no more than "pocket speed" (i.e. somewhat softly). As such, position play becomes easier than it is on slower cloth. If you're getting a home table, you will do yourself a great disservice if you don't go for a premium cloth. It's really an essential part of the modern game.

On-topic or not, there are a few of us out here who really like your pool-related posts. Keep 'em coming!

With this tool I have diagnosed nearly every electrical problem I have come across, and there have been some beauties.

Since one probe and the readout part are combined, I only have to concentrate on one hand at a time, helping greatly to avoid electric shocks. There are no aspects of the design which drive you crazy under repeated use, and a certain amount of specialised knowledge and experience is required to get the best out of it. Best £48 I ever spent on a tool.

My uncle CAT (big cat big letter) made matters clear with the young doberman. When it came to invetigate the cat, she jumped on the dobermans neck and made good use of it's hidden armament. Years later she could lie comfortly in the open doorway thus prohibiting the dog from getting out the house. She in fact outlived the doberman. Yeps the doberman was (as was the mansion, the rest of the family and the household staff) by the cat. Cat's are the smartest parasites known to the planet Terra and probably the most dangerous too. The BBC made a great horizon documentary about cats in a small village. The owners of a particular cat thought she was a nice and freindly house dweller, while the little critter was in fact terrorizing all the other cats in the neighbourhood via breaking and entering and grand theft food. How they got to grips with the furpawed villan.....they equiped the cat with a new necklace, containing a smart little camera and a GPS tracking device.

The other side of `pro' that occurs to me, particularly in photography, is `preparedness to tolerate hardship' - a consequence of an attitude that "I don't need all those buttons & features, it's all ISO+shutter+aperture at the end of the day" - come on, let in a little joy.

Don't get me started, Mike. I recently bought a house that had a Viking cooking stove. The seller's agent presented it to me as a huge plus; I mean, just imagine, "it's a pro stove!" I asked her if there was any chance I could buy the house without the stove and she looked at me like I was mad. "But...it's a professional stove..." she stammered.

I'm no professional cook, but I know a pain-in-the-arse stove when I see one. It features open burners, which means if I spill hot liquids, there's a good chance they'll drop into the hole around the burners...where the electric wiring for the sparkers is. Those cast iron grates are as heavy as they look, and if I want to clean the stove I practically have to take it apart. In the "Features" section of the specs, Viking say:

Did you get that? It's a snap once I remove and dismantle the heavy as hell grates, supports, bowls and caps (times 4 for the 4 burners), the center grates, and the drip pan. It takes me 20-30 mins to clean the damn thing. How long does it take me to clean an electric flat-top stove? 1 frickin' minute! ONE! And it would cost me maybe 1/2 as much.

This is like building a camera that, in order to change the film, you need to pull it apart. Or to change the battery and SD card you need to dismantle a bottom plate or something. Who would make such a camera???? Nobody, I'm sure. But if they did, I'm willing to bet they'd call it "pro" and charge an arm and a leg for it, just like Viking do.

You might be able to tell this is a sore subject with me. I don't want a pro stove, or camera, or anything. I'm doing just fine with my amateur stuff, even if nobody takes me seriously with it.

"This is like building a camera that, in order to change the film, you need to pull it apart. Or to change the battery and SD card you need to dismantle a bottom plate or something. Who would make such a camera????"

My definition of a professional pool player is one that can play well without the support of a few beers.

Like most amateurs I play in bar/pub pool halls and find I have a sweet spot between 2 and 4 pints. Before that I am nervous and too tensed up, by the time I finish the fourth I can see two queue balls and don't know which to hit....

Having said that, on the plateau I have managed quite a few clearances. Sober, not a one.

Okay, I feel the intense need to try to clarify a few big pool misconceptions here.

First, Chaz L has it exactly right on the "YES" fast cloth and "NO" tight pockets. Tight pocket tables are not regulation (which means you can't quite get two standard balls in side by side vs. two balls will just go on "regulation pocket" tables) and are NOT desirable if you are in a match at a poolroom with a player comparable to yourself. Fine if you want to practice on your home table, but IMO, won't help your game as much as reading "The Inner Game of Tennis".

Just to elaborate a little more on the fast cloth - Simonis 860 or 760 is NOT fast cloth, it is NORMAL cloth! That cheap, dark green, wet sod crap used in so many non-serious, date-only pool rooms where a real game has never taken place is what you have been lead to believe is the standard, or 'non-Pro' norm. Don't you believe it! If you ever want to learn to play pool, which means you've graduated to Nine-Ball and the light has come on about what position play really means, you will be on an uphill climb (and you will never really understand english) if you avoid "fast cloth".

Ditto for the wrapped pockets or whatever. I'd never head of that, but that's probably because Brunswick Gold Crown tables don't have that other open kind of pockets. Stick to the real thing and it'll never be an issue.

And last, the real point of my longish soon to be even longer commentary here - 'cause I feel I need to say so: The 'seedy underbelly' of the game, portrayed by the two great Pool Movies, isn't how it really really is.

Granted, the Pros on the Circuit don't earn the great money and purses as their Snooker playing bros across the Pond, where their best players are much more revered then over here. But there are those who make modest livings from the game and they're not necessarily "Hustlers" in the movie sense either. More like professional gamblers really.

Nine out of ten big money games that take place in established pool rooms (The likes of which are NOT named "Clicks") where both players know exactly what they're getting into and what the risk is when they play. Doesn't mean one guy might not think he's better than he actually is! Real pool is more like a poker game where you WILL get found out if you can't walk your talk!

These matches, which are almost always Nine-ball and are almost always played in races to some number, as in tourneys, often see quite a few hundred or even a couple thousand change hands in a match. Very rarely is this done in the form of a hustle or con, as is portrayed in the movies, or common perception. It's more likely the "Road Player" coming through town is eagerly anticipated and several high stakes games/players are ready and waiting to give the guy a try for the glory. Often the road guy is really just an incognito circuit pro, augmenting his income 'on the road'. The point is, there isn't much "hustling" going on in matches of this type - playing at this level there isn't much utility in it.

So, to sum it up: If you really wanna be a pool player, you must learn to play Nine-ball upon the regulation table until it becomes your new religion. It is along the path to (unattainable) mastery of Nine-ball that all other things pool will become clear to you. As long as you remain mired in the parochial and neophylitical game of "8-Ball", you will never truly understand the meaning of, nor reach your full potential in, the game of pool.

Now go forth my friend and good luck! (And walk softly and carry a Joss cue.)

Probably no field puts the kibosh on the 'pro' moniker faster than cooking. None of the best pans, for instance, are ever found in restaurant kitchens. The only thing a hobart mixer has over a countertop cuisinart is scale. Even knives tend to be cheap and utilitarian (in the sense of 'easily replaced when worn out') in real-world pro kitchens. Let's not even start on the relative scarcity of counter space in pro vs enthusiast kitchens.

I wouldn't give up my le creuset or fancy knives for anything.

Otoh, there is no question that there is a grade of gear, in most any field, which simply can't hack serious or sustained use. And it is worth avoiding that dreck.

The prefix 'pro' used to describe an activity is used when that activity is mainly associated with non-work, e.g. pro golfer. The prefix pro is used to label stuff when they are trying to fool the masses into believing something the item is better than it really is. Note that Nikon don't call the D4 a pro camera, they don't have to.

A piece of "pro" equipment should help the pro get the job done. It should be reliable and durable under the pro's usual working conditions. The equipment should be as ergonomic as possible. If it simplifies or speeds up the work flow while maintaining the desired quality of work, the equipment is worth buying.

I think the public hears "pro" and thinks "high quality" equipment. So far as I am concerned, there are a lot of cameras out there giving image quality that would have been considered miraculous 10 or 15 years ago. The marketers are hard at work trying to get the public to prefer one piece of excellent equipment to some other very similar piece of excellent equipment.